My cynical take

Well, i have no idea. Its pretty much ‘unknowable.’

I am ‘open to the possibility’
that individual refs are corrupt
and take bribes sometimes. In
fact I’d say thats almost inevitable.

As to a general conspiracy involving
multiple refs tipping games in various directions
for various reasons — Well, again,
I’m ‘open to the possibility’
of it, but I doubt it. I’m a skeptic
until somebody shows me some real proof.

Having said all that,
i do think it is highly unlikely
that one team commits ten penalties
and another team only commits one, etc.
Thats just really unlikely, imho.
So, i cant explain that kind of thing.
It vexes me. I think i remember a time
when refs kinda-sorta ‘evened things out’
if one team was penalized harshly.
Thats how i remember it in the olden
days, anyway.

w
v

SF 23
LA 20

I want the RAMS to win badly though.

Winnbrad wrote:

Mackeyser wrote:
Well, that’s part of the “evidence” wv.

Far too many games where the much better team is severely penalized with what seems like the sole purpose of either keeping the game close or keeping a team from running away from division opponents and clinching a playoff berth too early.

I mean, the NFL has a HUGE stake in the NFL playoffs being decided in the final week. Having a bunch of teams sit at 12-2 heading into week 15 pretty much seals the deal and only has a few teams fighting for wild card berths…

I can get behind that. Parity is extremely important for increasing revenue. The more meaningful the games, the more viewers they’ll have. More viewers = more $$$.

Well, im skeptical. If the league’s Refs were
trying to keep games interesting, why did Seattle Blow
out Denver in the Super Bowl? Why didnt
the Refs keep it close for the ratings?
Etc.

w
v

if this were true. and if it ever did get out. i mean a lot of people would have to keep silent about this. wouldn’t the nfl stand to lose a lot of money from that? and it’s already gotten a lot of bad press lately.

I didn’t believe this was possible until 2001 when the paytoilets stole that SB. Now i have no doubt.

cgsuddeath wrote:

Mackeyser wrote:
Based on the last few weeks of terribly suspicious refereeing… I’ve been talking to a friend about how the “narrative” in the NFL seems to be following a script right out of the WWE and guided almost ham-handedly by the Refs.

Witness the Denver-Jets game. That game should have been as lopsided as the Baltimore-Tampa game, but the Refs refused to allow that. If the Jets hadn’t been so damned inept, they would have easily taken that game because the Refs did everything in their power to hand it to them. As someone who’s watched football my entire adult life, there’s not such a fine line between even “home cooking” type calls and the egregious non-calls and obvious phantom calls that are plaguing the game today.

And I’ll reiterate what I said earlier… when the replacement Refs were there, they made bad mistakes, but they didn’t do what’s being done now… and ya know? We saw teams win that normally don’t win. We saw teams NOT get any benefit of the doubt. We didn’t see many of these weird disparate games where one team had 11 penalties for a gazillion yards and the other team had 1 penalty for 5 yards. Now, we see several games like that EACH WEEK, it affects the games dramatically AND they seem to follow some narrative.

Now, I get that all of that is probably some “Beautiful Mind” stuff of seeing patterns that aren’t there. Okay, fine. However, I just really believe that something’s going on. People refused to believe anything was happening in the NBA until they found that Refs were fixing games. I’m just saying that it’s a possibility and the (to my mind) suspect refereeing only lends itself to that narrative.

So, what’s my point?

Well, based on all that, I talked with my friend a few weeks ago. Started with the 9er/Eagles game. I told him that there was NO WAY the NFL would allow them to go 0-2 in that new stadium. After watching the refs ensure that the Eagles couldn’t do anything o offense, the 9ers STILL almost lost that game… and that was with the Refs basically handing them the game.

With the Cards at 4-1 and Seattle at 3-2, I just can’t see the NFL allowing the 9ers, a team they still see as being one of the elite teams to fall to 3-3. If the 9ers are going to miss the playoffs, it won’t be because of the Rams…

I think the Rams will put up a good fight, but either it’ll be a blowout or the 9ers will play like total shyte and get every call in order to get the victory.

Either way, I don’t think we stand much of a chance of actually winning. I just can’t see the NFL ALLOWING the Rams to win.

That’s my cynical take. I’ll take off my cynical hat now. I can’t wear it for too long. It’s like the One Ring…

You hit the nail on the head because that call against Cook was bogus.

Yup. Game, momentum definitely turned right there. Although, a good team has to be able to overcome bad calls. This one can’t.

Mackeyser wrote:

I totally called it.

Rams lose by 14…

Refs directly responsible for sending 14 pts to the 9ers… as well as squelching a Rams scoring drive that would have put the Rams up at least 17-3 if not 21-3 at the half…

Does that last 9er TD even happen if the game is closer? I dunno. They sure can’t sit back in that soft zone, that’s for sure.

But I totally called it. Rams got up and the calls kept coming until the game was out of reach.

I wanted to put this on the record BEFORE the game so that I was clear. This isn’t an accident.

Also, even Denver wouldn’t have overcome the Refs help if the Jets had made even some basic plays. Problem for the Jets is that they suck that bad that the Refs just couldn’t help them enough. But it weren’t for lack of trying…

And really, I like the QB Carr in Oakland, but who believes that those calls were legit and Oakland was playing San Diego straight up? I watched lots of that game and I was getting dizzy shaking my head.

I swear, this just LOOKS like a set up to move the “losing team” back to LA where St. Louis will have bid them adieu with waning fan support due to lack of wins and then all of a sudden, they’ll bust out and be a winning team in their new setting… That’s pure speculation, but man alive it sure seems like that’s the cheesy script.

Be nice if the game were just that, called on its merits and played for the win.

I don’t know, man. So hard to keep a conspiracy quiet. At least long term. Eventually refs aren’t refs any longer, and what’s to stop them from talking? Or any of countless people in that grapevine.

But that call on Cook was a turning point, for sure.

It’s just that it is impossible for me to call that a gamebreaker because it wasn’t. The Rams were incompetent, especially on defense. So although the refs botched a few calls, that loss was on the Rams themselves, I thought.

I did note, I thought, on the replays showing the job Staley was doing on Quinn, two holds and a hands to the face on the four plays they showed.

Again, I don’t know if it is outright corruption or incompetence because they can look the same.

But the refs are having an impact on the NFL in a very bad way this year.

Think of an Umpire who calls strikes for one batter in a strike zone as large as the Atlantic Ocean and for the next batter one the size of a raindrop. These guys are playing two separate games.

If one guy can be held relentlessly while another guy can’t sneeze on an opponent–it’s two separate games.

The game doesn’t look right–doesn’t feel right.

The Rams have had more than their share of that this year. No one in the media will ever point this out. They are selling the product. The Rams yelling about it would be just so much background noise. Useless.

All they can do is try to win IN SPITE of that. No easy task. But despite the situation with the refs, with having to play an opponent AND the refs–I don’t give the Rams a pass. Throughout the game they find ways to make bonehead plays or critical turnovers.

And if you blitz as much as Greg Williams does and CAN’T get a sack?????

The lack of sacks with the aggressiveness this team puts toward getting them is startling.

This screams that something is broken.